Permission Tuner

Reduce permission prompts by fixing their causes, not by piling up rules.

Trigger

Use when:

• Permission prompts interrupt flow repeatedly
• Auto mode keeps blocking routine work or falls back to prompting everything
• Starting a new project and want to configure permissions

How Prompts Happen

• Rules resolve first: deny > ask > allow. A matching ask rule prompts even in auto mode, and a PreToolUse hook returning allow cannot override it.
• In auto mode, anything no rule resolves goes to a classifier. After 3 blocks in a row or 20 in a session, auto mode pauses and prompts for everything until you approve one.
• Auto mode drops broad allow rules: Bash(*), wildcarded interpreters like Bash(node *), package-manager run commands, Agent, and Monitor.
• Hooks that exit 2 on harmless commands count as denials and push the session toward that fallback.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather data

Rules merge across scopes, so check every file that exists, not only the user file. /permissions shows the rules Claude Code actually loaded, and claude auto-mode config shows the effective autoMode (the classifier ignores autoMode in .claude/settings.local.json).

for f in ~/.claude/settings.json .claude/settings.json .claude/settings.local.json; do
  [ -f "$f" ] && jq --arg f "$f" '{file: $f, mode: .permissions.defaultMode, allow: (.permissions.allow|length), ask: (.permissions.ask|length), deny: (.permissions.deny|length), autoMode: (.autoMode != null)}' "$f"
done
claude auto-mode config
ls -t ~/.claude/projects/*/*.jsonl | head -20 | xargs grep -ho '"toolDenialKind":"[^"]*"' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

toolDenialKind values seen in transcripts (undocumented, may change): permission-rule (rule or hook), automode-blocked (classifier), automode-parsing-error and automode-unavailable (no verdict, not tunable), user-rejected (you said no).

Step 2: Pick the right fix

Step 3: Generate rules

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(git status)",
      "Bash(npm test)",
      "Bash(npm run lint)"
    ],
    "ask": [
      "Bash(git push --force*)",
      "Bash(git push * main)",
      "Bash(git push * main *)",
      "Bash(git push *:main)",
      "Bash(git push *:main *)",
      "Bash(git push * master)",
      "Bash(git push * master *)",
      "Bash(git push *:master)",
      "Bash(git push *:master *)",
      "Bash(gh pr merge *)",
      "Bash(npm publish*)"
    ],
    "deny": [
      "Bash(rm -rf *)",
      "Read(**/.env)",
      "Read(**/.env.*)"
    ]
  },
  "autoMode": {
    "environment": [
      "$defaults",
      "Source control: repositories under github.com/your-org are trusted; feature-branch pushes are routine."
    ],
    "allow": ["$defaults"],
    "soft_deny": [
      "$defaults",
      "Merging a pull request needs the user's approval for that specific merge."
    ]
  }
}

autoMode only takes effect in ~/.claude/settings.json, managed settings, or --settings. Keep "$defaults" in each list. Check the result with claude auto-mode config and review custom rules with claude auto-mode critique.

Output

PERMISSION TUNER REPORT

Mode: [mode]   Rules: [X] allow, [Y] ask, [Z] deny   autoMode: [yes/no]
Denials: [n] permission-rule, [n] classifier, [n] no verdict, [n] you rejected

Remove (ask rules you always approve):
  - Bash(...) -- approved [n]x

Add to autoMode.environment:
  + "..." -- clears [n] blocks

Add to autoMode.allow / soft_deny:
  + "..."

Fix hooks:
  ! [script] blocked [n] harmless commands

Keep asking:
  ~ force push, merge, publish, deploy

Estimated prompts saved per session: ~[N]

Rules

• Prefer autoMode entries over new ask rules
• Destructive operations stay in deny or ask
• Always present changes for user approval before applying
• Never write autoMode into project settings
• Include estimated prompt savings